


Ask Me No Questions

by sharpiesgal (TigerLily)



Category: Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerLily/pseuds/sharpiesgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Tony talked about their colorful pasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ask Me No Questions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neon_footprint (Ishtar)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishtar/gifts).



> The title comes from a Lynard Skynard song.

Bruce sat in the communal kitchen working the crossword puzzle out of the New York Times and indulging in a cup of green chai tea. He looked up from the paper when heard his lover come in and start to rummage around in the cabinets.

“What are you looking for, Tony?” he quietly inquired.

Tony muttered something incomprehensible and then stormed off heading for his workshop.

Bruce softly sighed and returned to his puzzle. He figured he had about five minutes before somebody came to ask him to do something with Tony.

Almost five minutes later, Clint walked into the large room making a beeline toward the coffee maker. He poured himself a cup and leaned against the counter to drink it while studying Bruce.

Bruce felt Clint’s gaze on him, but didn’t bother to look up. He needed a five letter word for stubborn fool and the only word that came to mind was idiot, which also brought to mind his lover’s strange behavior of late.

“So aren’t you going to ask me what he’s done now?” Clint asked breaking into Bruce’s thoughts.

“Do I have to?” Bruce countered.

“Not unless you’ve become a psychic, Doc.”

“That’s one skill I’ve not acquired,” Bruce murmured. “So what did he do now?”

“He blew by me going Mach Four with his hair on fire as I was leaving the range. I asked if he needed any help and he told me to leave him alone,” Clint explained. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say he’s running away from something.”

Bruce finished his tea before folding the paper in half and sitting it in the middle of the table. He slipped his pen and glasses in his shirt pocket. “I guess I better go find out what’s troubling him,” he said although he had a pretty good idea what Tony was running away from.

“I would before Cap does,” Clint quietly remarked. He sat down and snagged the paper. “Did you leave me the sudoku?”

“I thought Steve was out of town doing something for Fury,” Bruce said as he stood up to leave. He picked up his cup and placed it in the sink. “And, yes I left you the sudoku.”

“He came home last night,” Clint said with an enigmatic smile.

Bruce knew what that smile meant and felt a little envious. He and Tony hadn’t had sex in over a week. In fact, they hadn’t even been sleeping in the same bed. “I’ll keep Tony away from him.”

“Good idea. You know Steve is a horrible agony aunt.”

Bruce nodded and left directing his steps toward Tony’s workshop.

* & * & *

Bruce stood outside the glass door leading into Tony’s workshop and watched in wry amusement as his lover wrecked the place to the sound of German heavy metal. 

Tony’s choice in music told Bruce all he needed to know about his lover’s state of mind, which wasn’t good because Tony preferred to listen to AC/DC or Black Sabbath instead of Rammstein when he worked, so that meant Clint was right about Tony running away from something.

Bruce figured that something had to be Tony’s past, but it was speculation on his part since he and Tony rarely discussed anything that happened to them before they became part of the Avengers Initiative. They chose to focus on the present rather than the past or the future.

Something that Bruce intended to rectify in the near future.

Seeing that Tony had finally ran out of steam, Bruce had Jarvis let him in and turn down the music. "Of the two of us, I thought I was the one with breathtaking anger management issues,” he gently chided with barely suppressed humor.

Tony looked up from the piece of circuit board he was toying with and asked, "What do you want?"

"I don't want anything,” Bruce cautiously replied.

"Here to satisfy your curiosity, perhaps."

"I'll admit to being curious as to whom or what pissed you off enough that you trashed this place again,” Bruce quietly remarked.

"If I were to say the usual suspects, would you leave it alone?" Tony asked deliberately not looking Bruce in the eye.

"No, because Pepper is in DC testifying before Congress and Phil is off scaring new SHEILD agents," Bruce quietly replied knowing by the way Tony was avoiding looking at him that there was another reason for Tony' s hissy fit.

"I'm just having a bad day," Tony hedged not wanting to divulge the real reason he was in a bad mood. He didn’t want to give it anymore power over him than it already had.

"If you want, I can let the Other Guy out and you two can spar," Bruce offered.

"Thank you, but it's not necessary." Tony kept toying with the damaged circuit board hiding the smile that his mouth had twisted into. He knew how hard it was for his lover to make such an offer, and he truly appreciated the gesture.

“But, trashing your lab is?”

“It’s my lab. I can do what the fuck I want to with it.”

“Why don’t you give the bots a break?”

“Why are you suddenly so concerned with my well-being?”

“I love you, Tony,” Bruce replied. “And, when you hurt, it hurts me.”

“That’s oddly endearing,” Tony snarked. “I might be sick.”

“Stop being an asshole.”

“Yes, that was rather assholish of me.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “You’re going to have to try harder than that to get me to leave.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Tony reluctantly admitted.

“But...”

“I want to be left alone.”

“How about I sit over here,” Bruce suggested pointing toward the one clean spot in the room. “And work on a few things of mine own.”

“You’re not going to try and make me talk?” Tony asked suspicious.

“No,” Bruce promised. “You’ll tell me what’s bothering you in your own time.”

“How did you become so wise?”

Bruce softly chuckled. “Remind me of that when I’m haggling with Clint over the last bit of mint chocolate chip ice cream.”

Tony nodded and smiled.

Bruce settled in to wait Tony out by perching on Tony’s favorite stool and playing with his tablet. He didn’t have to wait too long.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?” he cautiously asked. “Really talk.”

“Yes, I would like that,” Bruce agreed as he set Tony’s tablet down on the work bench.

Tony tossed the circuit board down and held out his hand. Bruce took it and let Tony pull him from the room.

* & * & *

Tony made himself at home on the couch in the media room resting his pounding head in Bruce’s lap. He didn’t wait for Bruce to ask him any questions. “Today is the anniversary of the day I was taken hostage,” he began.

Bruce didn’t say a word. He just listen as Tony told him what happened to him in Afghanistan. He had known a little bit, but hearing it from his lover just confirmed what a remarkable person his lover was.

In the end, Bruce also confided in Tony. He told him what he remember about the day of his accident and the never ending paranoia of being chased all over the world.

“We are quite a pair, aren’t we?” Tony quietly remarked.

“That we are,” Bruce admitted with a warm smile. He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Tony’s lips.

Tony softly sighed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly exhausted.”

“Me too,” Bruce admitted, and soon after they both were sound asleep.

Later, Clint came by and covered them with a blanket happy to know that his two favorite scientists had finally worked things out.

fin


End file.
